Following the brightness

Caspar, the young King of Tarsus
Melchoir, with is long beard, lead Arabia
Balthazar hailed from Ethiopia
on camels
over deserts and mountains
chasing a brightness
they must have understood
heard a message in their heads,
“Keep going”
knowing they would find wonder
but not bewilderment
they bore gifts for a bigger kind than they
the finest annointing of the most precious
commodities
a showing to God
of what God already
has seen
what he knows
and doesn’t want

Who knows what God wants?
If you listen carefully, it would
seem
that it’s actually quite
simple
as we’ve been told
over and over
again
‘to love one another’

And yet, mankind’s two primary
primate operations
seem to be
warring
and profiteering
taking from others
who have more
or less
after a while
it doesn’t matter
you get so used to taking
co-opting
destroying
slash and burn
crush and destroy
shock and awe
leaving a wake of
despair

that takes longer than
eternity
to heal
especially all
added up in a
heap pile
of inhumanity
to man

Why do we do this?
Why do we take more than we need
why do we crave the taking
when we have enough
for everyone
just distribution
problems
bureaucratic delays
paperwork hang-ups
and late in the third quarter
reevaluations of priorities

Priorities aren’t clear, most of the time
we set them then leave them
on the side of the road
to fend for themselves

Values lay fallow
waking every half decade or so
to remind us of our
sanctimonious and
ashamed
sides
two flips of the coin

Holding true to anything
but distraction
in this world
of interactive nothingness
coagulated ideas
anger and opinions that
don’t matter 35 seconds later

in the big scheme of things
hard to be mindful of that
when the little scheme
is so much more
mouthy
grabs our attention
immediate needs
Maslow’s pyramid,
adjusted
for the post-modern drip
age:
acknowledgement (to be ignored, even snubbed)
status (outward appearance of worth to society)
marketing technique (how to manipulate consumers
to fear what they don’t have, especially what you
can provide)
and retail numbers
at this time of year

The anxiety of this month is palpable
to the shop owners
it’s one of the few make or break
times people share
around the birth
of our saviour